Blog.

There is a basic bargain to be had. Imagine a tax system which made the top rates on wages and capital more equal, and which eliminated virtually all deductions. To avoid taxing investments twice, such a system would get rid of corporate taxes. It would also allow for a much lower top rate of income tax. The result? A larger overall tax take from the rich, without hurting the dynamism of the economy.

This opinion piece in The Economist has one of of the more balanced takes on the US (and Western World’s) current tax and income redistribution adventure. It asks a lot of the same questions that I’ve wondered myself.

I’m not a tax expert by any means, but it seems that our efforts shouldn’t be focused on how to get only the rich to pay more taxes directly, but on simplifying and streamlining the existing tax code: the result automatically being that everyone pays a more “fair” share of tax related to the revenue they bring in. I guess that just doesn’t have the same political punchiness in the pulpit for either side.

It’s what I call national suicide – and that’s not hyperbole. Every day that we fail to fix our broken immigration laws is a day that we inflict a wound on our economy. Today, we may have turned away the next Albert Einstein or Sergey Brin. Tomorrow, we may turn away the next Levi Strauss or Jerry Yang.

I don’t agree with Bloomberg on everything, but I do agree that ignoring legitimate immigration reform is, essentially national suicide. For all of our faults, we’re still a country that many people across the world would like to move to and contribute to. That’s a good thing for all of us. Let’s not mess this up.

“One is excessive leverage leads to trouble. Wherever it pops up, not necessarily in the banking system, it can be in households, but the idea that you have to leverage yourself to buy something you can’t pay for in its entirety, it has its merits and limitations.

“It’s kind of like alcohol. One drink is fine, but 10 will get you in a lot of trouble. With leverage, people have a great propensity to use it because it’s so much fun when it works. There should be some ways of controlling leverage, and that applies to individuals with home mortgages. The idea of people buying houses at 2%-3% down is going to lead to trouble.

Undoubtedly, Buffett is a wise man. That said, what constantly amazes about him is his adherence to common sense. We don’t usually think of simple common sense as wisdom. But it is. Most of us don’t observe it enough. Perhaps, a lot of what we call common sense isn’t all that common anymore?

Bonus: “Every line in the tax code is there because someone was fighting for it. The people who care about that line are concentrated and focused on it, and people who are affected by that line are diffused and really not even aware of it.”

This is why politics are so tricky. It’s hard to care about the one tiny little line-item that doesn’t affect you, but the sum-total of all of those innocent little lines has a huge affect on everyone.

Citizens of rich countries often fret about the occasional harm that corporations do, yet take for granted the prosperity they create. People in developing countries do not have that luxury.

Elements of this editorial are controversial, for sure, but he raises an interesting point that I’ve wondered about myself: who are we, in the 1st-world of “haves” to slow down economic progress in the 3rd-world of “have nots”? It’s a hard process to balance.

The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and a lot of change. What it’s not doing is providing millions of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it’s not going to.

I’m fascinated by this idea. I think he’s right. We’ve lost some jobs that are simply not worth replacing, but if we’re not careful, we’ll further damage our economy trying to live in the past.

Andy Rutledge on the effects of a down economy on Interactive Agencies

Andy has some great points. He expects small companies/freelancers in the creative/interactive profession are best positioned to weather the storm.

I think he’s right. When companies start looking for more value from their marketing and interactive media dollars, small, more agile companies and freelancers will be one of the best sources of it. This is exactly where [gb] Studio is positioned. We’re small, agile, and eager. I’m excited to see where things go over the next couple years.